Philippine media can be quite the unforgiving audience. 

That is, if one were to find themselves caught up in the crest of its latest hate wave. However, once the peak of the topic eventually comes crashing down, the debris left behind by the performative want for social justice will be washed ashore — swept away from the minds of most Filipinos. While there is truth surrounding the unappeasable nature of Filipino masses, I find that it is also important to state that they are just as forgetful as they are ruthless.

Which, as someone bent on reaching actual and lasting change, is a frustrating reality to accept and an even more irritating cycle to witness in real time. Controversy rises, then people behave like it’s the end of the world, and then all of a sudden, they decide that it’s not anymore. Right, simple. So why is it that Filipino citizens are so quick to rally for fairness and throw the most ethically challenging, morally charged, protest-inducing statements around just to act like such issues never surfaced once the week passes? Or even worse, once it’s inevitably replaced by another issue to pile up on.

It seems to me that people barely treat these affairs as subjects in need of thorough discussions, for they are now recognized as opportunities to showcase their own ‘groundbreaking’ moral compasses for others to drool over. Which is why it is truly disheartening for me to see such energy wasted over and over again—either on the most trivial matters known to earth or in disingenuous attempts to call for change—when it could indeed make an impact if we simply set aside our desires to be known as the next justice warriors and instead learned to place our sentiments where it mattered.

I do not consider myself the poster child for activism, yet I still think if we continuously abuse the term by using it interchangeably with the word ‘criticism,’ it would be a complete and total waste of a potentially good cause. Activism will gradually lose both its meaning and essence if we keep regarding it as a buzzword to mindlessly throw around for extra brownie points. Nowadays, it’s far too easy to ‘make a stand,’ even when the statements are noticeably shallow and produced for the sake of looking all high-and-mighty and righteous. How are we Filipinos supposed to develop critical thinking skills if we keep giving standing ovations to people for stating the bare and obviously ‘better’ side?

Newsflash: gaining a sense of superiority for having a better set of morals than some person you don’t know won’t actually result in accountability from the offender in question or in any meaningful difference for that matter. Even less impact will be made if we immediately move on once the majority has found the statement that speaks for all of them. And in actuality, the less we treat issues as mere fads, the more conflicts we’ll be able to resolve and pay proper attention to. But until then, the next big thing to unsuitably lose our marbles over will be lurking just around the corner, with a hundred other ‘next big things’ following behind.